The telling and retelling of the Larry Bird story has become anAll-Star weekend tradition, in much the same way that "'Twas thenight before Christmas" accompanies Yuletide. It was in1986--the year the three-point shooting contest became part ofthe All-Star festivities--that Bird, the Boston Celtics'legendary forward, walked into the Reunion Arena locker room inDallas, took one look at his seven opponents and asked,chillingly, "All right, which one of you a------- is going tofinish second?" The psychological battle already won, he thenshot his way to the first-place trophy with cold-blooded ease.

Had Bird entered the locker room before the All-Star shoot-outlast Saturday at Gund Arena, he would have found a group ofmarksmen ripe for the taking. The place was silent, save for atelevision playing in the background, as eight of the bestshooters in the NBA wordlessly prepared for battle. "There'ssomething about being in that room, just the eight of you, thatheightens the tension," Washington Bullets guard Tim Legler, whowon the 1996 contest, would say later. "Last year there was sometrash-talking, but this year there were no mind games except forthe ones you played with yourself."

There were more than a few of those. "I feel like I should win,"Denver Nuggets forward Dale Ellis, the league's alltime leaderin three-point field goals made, had said the day before theshoot-out, "but I don't feel like I should feel that way, if youknow what I'm saying." Walt Williams of the Toronto Raptors wasat the other end of the spectrum. "I'm only a first-timer inthis thing," he said. "Those other guys are probably lickingtheir chops."

The three-point contest plays havoc with the shooter'smentality, maybe because it requires him to perform a familiaract under unfamiliar conditions. "Shooting 25 open jump shots inless than a minute is something you're not going to do in a gameor even in a normal practice," says Chicago Bulls guard SteveKerr. "That's why you can be a good shooter and not necessarilydo well in this." Evidence to support that theory: In his onlyyear in the contest--1990--Michael Jordan scored five points,tying Detlef Schrempf for the worst showing in history.

If anyone had reason to be cocky before the contest it was Kerr,a former Cavalier who was warmly welcomed by the Cleveland fans.When he arrived at the arena, he was stopped every few steps bysomeone wishing him luck or telling him he would win. But thatkarma was at least partly offset by the bad omen of Kerr's lastvisit to Gund Arena, on Jan. 23, when he missed all three of hisshots (two of them three-point tries) and went scoreless in a87-71 Bulls win. "The next morning Nicolas [Kerr's four-year-oldson] walked into my room and started chanting 'No points forDaddy, no points for Daddy,'" says Kerr.

But there was Nicolas on his feet last Saturday, cheering forDaddy. And Kerr had other high-profile boosters, too. There wasCleveland Indians centerfielder Kenny Lofton, one of Kerr'sformer college teammates at Arizona, high-fiving fans in thestands as Kerr shot his way to the finals against Legler. Andthere was Kerr's Chicago teammate Scottie Pippen, who was sonervous in the final stages of the competition that he couldhardly bear to watch from the sidelines. Touching display,though it was no doubt a reflection in part of Pippen's having adollar or two riding on Kerr.

And Kerr paid off, making 48 of 75 shots to win his firstthree-point title in four tries. When the competition was over,most of the crowd stood and cheered his effort, including atall, sandy-haired fellow in the first row who noddedapprovingly. Maybe Bird was thinking that the trophy was indeserving hands. More likely, he was thinking that Kerr wouldhave been a worthy second-place finisher.